When we analysed the results, we discerned two trends. Our participants took more pleasure from repeating patterns than non-repeating ones, and were more excited by intense patterns than weak ones.
With repeating patterns, for example, we found that participants registered an increase of theta brain waves in an area called the Fz channel location at the midline of the frontal lobe. The literature correlates this with pleasant emotion. At the same time, our participants found non-repeating patterns less pleasant and found weaker patterns more calming.
It is important to appreciate that pleasure and excitement are not the same thing in neuroscience. Exciting things surprise us and make us sit up and take notice. They are not necessarily pleasant, however. Things can be exciting and unpleasant, just as they can be pleasant but not hold our attention.
The challenge for product designers is to create products that are both pleasant and exciting at the same time. Apple is the classic example of a company that achieved this with their Mac computers in the 1990s. These machines looked so different to the rest of the market that they surprised people, yet were also extremely pleasant from a visual point of view.